Buyers of restricted guns armed with permit loophole

Cris Parsons, general manager, stands next to a Browning M-2 twin 50-caliber machine gun, It is for sale for $75,000 at Houston Armory in Stafford.

Cris Parsons, general manager, stands next to a Browning M-2 twin...

Harris County authorities are struggling with a backlog of hundreds of requests by citizens seeking approval to own machine guns, silencers, sawed-off shotguns and other weapons that apparently were not acted upon by the last top prosecutor's staff.

Gun enthusiasts here and in other parts of the United States are increasingly turning to what amounts to a legal workaround to still get permission for the special class of weapons without having to submit such a request to local officials.

Nationally, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the number of applications for such weapons using the workaround have increased from 1,938 in 2004 to 39,354 in 2012, a twentyfold increase.

The maneuver involves creating a legal trust - similar in some ways to a corporation - to purchase the weapons and is advertised on fliers on gun-store counters as well as websites for lawyers and licensed firearms dealers.

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Under federal law, armament known as Class 3 weapons - those restricted under the National Firearms Act - can be legally owned by individuals if the "chief law enforcement officer" for the region where they live signs a form stating that he knows of no reason why the applicants should be denied such a weapon.

But such local authorization is not needed if the buyers of the weapons form a trust as the purchaser, in which case only federal permission is required.

Background checks

Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for the ATF's Houston Division, said Friday the agency is aware of the workaround and evaluating it.

Even with a trust, federal authorities still must check the fingerprints and criminal background of the "designated responsible party," but not for the other listed members, who still can use the guns.

The Houston Police Department said it was unaware of ever getting one of the requests, and the Harris County Sheriff's Office said all are referred to the District Attorney's Office for review.

Sara Marie Kinney, a spokeswoman for the new district attorney, Mike Anderson, said two accordion files filled with applications were inherited from the staff of Pat Lykos, who lost re-election last year after four years in office.

"They are literally working on it right now, how to go forward," Kinney said. "We are not going to comment on what the previous administration did, mostly because we aren't sure."

Kinney said that all pending applications are being sent back to the Sheriff's Office for review. It wasn't immediately clear how long ago they had first been submitted.

In a letter to Sheriff Adrian Garcia late Friday, Anderson said his office had determined that "for the purposes of conducting the background certification, the (chief law enforcement officer) for applicants residing in Harris County should be exclusively the Harris County Sheriff" and that his office no longer would accept any applications from Garcia's office.

Common knowledge

Sheriff's Office spokesman Alan Bernstein said Friday its attorneys would review Anderson's letter and make a recommendation to Garcia about how to proceed.

Lykos said she recalls signing a handful of such requests during her tenure after they'd been screened by her staff.

"All of them went to the chief investigator, the investigator's bureau vetted them and made their recommendations to me and the (second in command)," she said. "Just a few were approved. One I remember because it was inherited from a World War II veteran."

While law enforcement officials in Harris County and across the nation have been hesitant to sign off on the applications - perhaps due to concerns over political liability should the weapons fall into the wrong hands - legal trusts are getting around any roadblocks.

Houston attorney Al Van Huff said it is common knowledge in the gun community that top law-enforcement officers will decline to sign applications simply because they don't want to be the one who gave the green light for a private citizen to have such weapons should they later be stolen or used in a crime.

"As a matter of policy throughout the country, chiefs of police and sheriffs are reluctant to sign off on Class 3 firearms applications," Van Huff said. "It opens a Pandora's box of political problems based on unforeseen circumstances."

He said in recent years almost no one submits applications to local authorities because gun dealers know few will be approved.

"It would come down on the city government or county government and all the fingers would be pointed at the chief of police or sheriff," he said, adding that the odds of a private citizen getting a permit approved if they have no personal relationship with a top law-enforcement official are "close to zero."

City Council­man C.O. Bradford estimated he approved less than five of the forms during his tenure as Houston police chief from 1996 to 2003, and he did not remember rejecting any.

"I recall on a couple of occasions where people in Harris County submitted a letter or application to me, and I had my central intelligence division do a background check on the individual," he said. "And I remember signing off."

Bradford said he recalls the weapons were fully automatic submachine guns and were being acquired by collectors.

"I still think today, for people who keep weapons as collectors, I think we can have responsible gun ownership, and that includes the type of weapons we're talking about today," he said.

Mental health aspect

HPD officials said the department had no record of receiving applications for any Class 3 weapons.

Pasadena Police Chief Michael Thaler said he has not been asked to approve an application and has no plans to do so.

"I know background checks have been done, and they don't have a criminal history, but I am concerned about the mental health aspect, to what extent the individual has been vetted other than just attesting they haven't had any psychological issues or none have been occurring recently," Thaler said.

"From law enforcement's perspective, before we give anybody that ability or right to weapons that are that destructive, I think the vetting process needs to be much stronger than we have presently," he said.